Slam

Question 6: Can slam poetry be short, or does it have to be long? Recital can be fraught. Egos contend with attention spans as a roomful of poets take their turn to speak. Some think public readings are an insult to poetry, which was written for close reading tête-à-tête. This is how far we have come from the Edwardians. They memorised epics just to get through tiffin. [Slam] is performance. Slam asks for entertainment about your bad attitudes and rollercoaster love life. It’s like hit records: three minutes is perfect, seven way radical. Try 40 haiku and see what happens.

 

Photograph taken in 2014: underpass mosaic by Pamela Irving at Patterson Station in Bentleigh. We all know something made by Pamela Irving. Her studio nearby has been in operation since 2006: https://www.pamelairving.com.au/about/